


pregame: cursing the sun

by hecleretical



Series: pregame [2]
Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Things happening to children, Baltimore Crabs (Blaseball Team), Body Horror, Eye Trauma, Gen, just existentially rather bad in a canon typical way, navel gazing, stare into the sun indeed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26970211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hecleretical/pseuds/hecleretical
Summary: What did she do, Loser asks. Calm, not judgmental. How did she stay alive?The seeing eye bird on Nagomi McDaniel's shoulder preens. Her answer is slow and measured.Nagomi McDaniel cursed the sun.or, four years in nutgomi's shell.
Relationships: Kennedy Loser & Nagomi McDaniel, Nagomi McDaniel & York Silk
Series: pregame [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968154
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	pregame: cursing the sun

Nagomi McDaniel has been inside her shell for four years.

Nutgomi McDaniel has been inside her shell for four years.

Later when asked, if anyone has the temerity to ask, she gives them a level stare, does not respond. What was it like in there? She won't say.

Only to Kennedy Loser, unprompted, late at night with empty coffee cups and energy drink cans littered around them, Tot Fox asleep, curled up on her lap, does she reveal.

It was dark. Humid. Her breathing fogged up the air, and the air was stale. Enough light filtered in through the shell of the peanut to barely see her hands. She hungered, but she did not eat. Her mouth was dry, but she did not drink. Occasionally motion, the feeling of being wheeled past the plate. The thwack of a ground out hitting her shell.

Her fingernails grew long. Into claws. The chitin on her back and shoulders grew thick. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Her eyes...

What did she do, Loser asks. Calm, not judgmental. How did she stay alive?

The seeing eye bird on Nagomi McDaniel's shoulder preens. Her answer is slow and measured.

Nagomi McDaniel cursed the sun.

There were other things, first. She tried to work out the date. Composed letters to York and his mother. Listed the names of her teammates. First on the Hands, and then as she began to smell the sea air of Baltimore, of the Crabs. Tot Fox Forrest Nagomi Loser Ollie Sutton Parker Tillman Pedro. In that order. Like a prayer. Tot Fox Forrest Nagomi Loser Ollie Sutton Parker Tillman Pedro.

Nagomi. Nutgomi. Nutgomi Mcdaniel.

Sometimes, she admits, puts a hand on his knee, she heard Loser's voice. Speaking to her, through the shell, after games after practice. The crow eats birdseed from her outstretched hand. The good one, not the claw. But hearing a friendly voice can only take you so far.

In her shell, in her womb, in the Peanut's mouth.

Nutgomi McDaniel cursed the sun.

The sun that shines down on the immaterial plane. That shines down on Blaseball, on blaseballers, toiling every hour, never sleeping, never resting...the sun that lets it happen. The sun that watches. The sun set in the sky by the Gods' cruel design, the sun that is an accomplice, a silent witness to horrors. When it closes its eyes, it's only for the umps. Somehow, refusing to see that horror is the worst of all.

It's a cruel splort. It's not fair. Even out of her shell, the blaseball star, she knows it's not fair. The crowd that cheers as she drives in three runs is the same crowd that watched her be wheeled past the plate, a cruel display of the ump's power, day after day, game after game. They could have stormed the field. The sun could have refused to shine.

We're the same too, Loser says. We could have gotten you out. We could have done something. We didn't.

She says nothing to that. Only pauses a moment, strokes her seeing-eye crow, and continues to speak. Calmly, evenly. She used to shout encouragement, but so far, she's never raised her voice.

What changed was the birds. As she cursed, as she prayed, as she chanted her teammates' names, she heard their calls. Felt their weight on her shell, perching. She could have sworn sometimes that she heard them speak. Voices in the calls-- Nagomi, Nutgomi. And then, Henderson. And then, bargain. And after that-- free.

A chorus, now. Free. Free.

And the light spilled on to Nagomi McDaniel's face-- for even closed, grown over, her eyes can see a little light-- and the cheers and roars of the crowd, and the smell of the stands, and the voice of Kennedy Loser in her ears. And the heat of the sun on her back.

And you said--

And I told you we were playing the Beams.

Yes, she says. And she knew she would never be free.

Someone unbuttoned her Hands jersey, replaced it with a clean Crabs one, handed her a bottle of water. Awed whispering in the dugout. Parker Parra, trying to explain a lot of roster changes she doesn't quite understand. A bird, perching on her shoulder.

The Hellmouth is warm, there is a stiff breeze. She feels heat rising from the ground, the heat of the day on her back. Another day of Blaseball. It's the Postseason, Loser tells her. Game one. She will never be free. He will never be free. York, as she finds out later, in his shell now, will never be free.

They'd won that game. And now, tonight, she tells Kennedy Loser what her secret was. How it was they put the bat in her hands, made sure her claw could hold it, and she immediately brought in two runs, then three. How she's going to win the next game, tomorrow.

What gives her strength. What gets her through.

Nagomi McDaniel curses the sun.


End file.
